Acta Arachnologica Vol. 52(2003) No. 2

Juveniles of a nematode belonging to the family Mermithidae were found from wolf spiders, Pardosa pseudoannulata, collected in a paddy field in Kyoto, Japan. Their morphological characteristics are briefly reported along with some ecological notes. This is the first record of a mermithid from P. pseudoannulata.

A soil-dwelling crab spider, Oxyptila atomaria (Panzer 1801) (Araneae: Thomisidae), is newly recorded from Japan based on specimens recently collected in Hokkaido mainly by pit fall trapping. A description of the spider is presented with illustrations of its female genitalia and male palpal organ. Although this species is widely distributed in northern Eurasia from Europe to Siberia, Sakhalin, Korea and Japan, it seems much rarer in the eastern part.

Four known species, Cybaeus miyosii Yaginuma 1941, C. okafujii Yaginuma 1963, C. kumaensis Irie & Ono 2001 and C. hibaensis Ihara 1994, and two new species, C. kunisakiensis and C. tsurugi are described as the miyosii-group in the genus Cybaeus (Cybaeidae). These six species are small to medium in size and pale in color compared to other species of each of the local species assemblages. The miyosii-group is distributed over western Japan, corresponding to the Chugoku district (western Honshu), Shikoku and Kyushu. Each species of the group occupies a fragment within an overall geographic range of the group. Since these six species show close similarities in external morphology and they are parapatric in their distribution, they can be recognized as a single superspecies.

Four new species of the genus Malaconothrus Berlese 1916 from South Africa and Lesotho are described (Malaconothrus minimus sp. nov., Malaconothrus longidorsus sp. nov., Malaconothrusengelbrechti sp. nov. and Malaconothrus stigmatus sp. nov.) and a description of the South African representatives of the species Malaconothrus indifferens Hammer 1966 is given.